KENYA: The Man Behind the Names

Among the interesting people, places and circumstances that have influenced the history of avian nomenclature, one individual plays a most prominent role in the birds of East Africa. We were reminded of this man upon sighting the gorgeous emerald-and-white Klaas’s Cuckoo (below) while walking the grounds of the Lake Naivasha Country Club.

French explorer and naturalist Francois Le Vaillant collected many specimens in southern Africa, and published the classic Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux d’Afrique at the turn of the nineteenth century. Considering the continent’s history of European colonialism, it is not surprising that three species of birds found in East Africa bear his name: Crested Barbet (Trachyphonus vaillantii), a southern Africa species that reaches its northern limit in Tanzania; Levaillant’s Cisticola found in highland swamps; and Levaillant’s Cuckoo (below), an intra-African migrant.

Klaas, after whom Klaas’s Cuckoo is named, holds a distinctive place in avian folklore. He is only one of two native black persons for whom a bird is named. Klaas was Le Vaillant’s servant, and is assumed to have found the species himself.

The Narina Trogon (above) bears the namesake of the only other native black person who appears in avian nomenclature. Narina was also connected to Le Vaillant – she was his mistress, and, like Klaas, a native of the Khoi-khoi (Hottentot) tribe. Le Vaillant had a penchant for naming; Narina was the name given by Le Vaillant to his mistress, after he deemed that this word for ‘flower’ in the khoi-khoi language was more pleasing than her given name.

In addition to naming birds after close friends, Le Vaillant is also responsible for the common name of Bateleur (above), a french word meaning acrobat or tightrope walker, which perfectly describes the aerial maneuvers of this short-tailed raptor. He preferred to give french names to species he discovered, in opposition to Linnaeus’ latin-based systematic nomenclature. The word Bateleur is still in use today, and two native Africans are immortalized by two lovely African bird species.